Blame water board, too

December 24, 2015 04:01 PM

Blame water board, too

Re “Water officials move to ease restrictions for inland areas” (1A, Dec. 22): A photo caption in The Bee said that the drought had sent Folsom Lake to its lowest levels ever. Actually, the State Water Resources Control Board deserves a fair share of responsibility for the lake’s new record low of 135,561 acre-feet.

The fair share is about a quarter of the water drained from the lake in 2015. In mid-June, when the lake was at almost exactly the same level as one year before, the board ordered increased outflows for environmental reasons, resulting in about 200,000 less acre-feet in storage at the end of August than one year before.

Let’s avoid blaming anyone, but let’s be clear that the record low was because of both the drought and to regulatory decisions. We can’t do much about nature, but let’s review this and other board decisions to see if we can improve regulatory actions in the future.

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Don’t ban Chinese fruit

Re “2nd school district bought Chinese fruit” (Local, Dec. 20): So Elk Grove and Sacramento City Unified School Districts have defied a federal guideline. And U.S. Rep. John Garamendi said he “would expect the taxpayers of Elk Grove to be unhappy that their money wound up in China rather than the Sacramento region.” But should other countries not buy agriculture from the U.S. for a similar reason? And what about the non-food items schools still purchase from China? Sacramento Unified saved almost $60,000. California has 330 unified districts, 560 elementary districts and 87 high school districts. Since Chinese fruit is legal, approved, and spot-checked by the FDA, isn’t that currently the best use of taxpayers’ dollars?

John Hightower, Orangevale

Enough is enough

Re “The carving of a $1 billion loophole” (1A, Dec. 21) and “Democrats divided on how to fight terrorism” (3B, Dec. 21): These articles grabbed my attention the other morning. Once again, lobbyists for billionaire Wall Street investors are sneaking in another loophole to enrich themselves even more. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, in exasperation, says that this country cannot continue to be the police of the world.

Many are so sick of Wall Street greed and of this country’s insistence in sending our men and women to fight all over the world only to create instability with terrible consequences such as the Islamic State. It’s not the rich kids fighting but the children of middle American families.

Wake up. Listen to the message that Sanders has maintained his entire political life.

Don Brown, Sacramento

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